Posted
by
Soulskill
on Saturday October 02, 2010 @03:59PM
from the bought-and-paid-for dept.

An anonymous reader sends this excerpt from The Atlantic:
"'The average American doesn't realize how much of the laws are written by lobbyists' to protect incumbent interests, Google CEO Eric Schmidt told Atlantic editor James Bennet at the Washington Ideas Forum. 'It's shocking how the system actually works.' In a wide-ranging interview that spanned human nature, the future of machines, and how Google could have helped the stimulus, Schmidt said technology could 'completely change the way government works.' 'Washington is an incumbent protection machine,' Schmidt said. 'Technology is fundamentally disruptive.' Mobile phones and personal technology, for example, could be used to record the bills that members of Congress actually read and then determine what stimulus funds were successfully spent."
We discussed a specific example of this from the cable industry back in August.

You complete oaf. The phrase is used to indicate to the listener (who is explicitly compared to Sherlock Holmes) that there was little bullshitting taking place, i.e. there was little attempt to hide some facts of the matter and the implicit claim on the part of the listener that some kind of shrewd deduction or observation had been achieved was an insult to the intelligence of the audience.

PR stooge - Plese sir, Dr. Schmidt sir, pardon me but you made yourself look like a real perverted arse hole when you claimed nobody has a right to privacy from you and, you need to fix it because it is severely damaging Google's image and your job is on the line. Scmidt - Can I blame the new guy or the pervert engineer. PR Stooge - not really sir, the words came out of your mouth publicly, but you could point the finger out someone else for something worse. Schmidt - worse, there is nothing

I guess it has everything to do with the insular nature of techies. Generally they don't wander off to the realm of political science, economics (except for the damned econometricians, myself included), or any of the other fuzzy stuff. And unless it's perhaps the history of science and technology, they don't want to have anything to do with the humanities unless it's at gunpoint. Sadly, I was thoroughly corrupted by that evil author Robert A. Heinlein (at the tender age of 3 by my mother!) and while I ha

Notice that he does not say "I just realized that [our political system is fucked]", he says "Most americans don't know that [our political system is fucked]". That is a genuine concern that could be addressed by a PR campaign.

....no external input? How much was that? Does a cogent argument get put in, or one that's bought and paid for?

The flames you'll get refers to your sense that we're somehow 'Balkanized' when in fact, we're simply bought and paid for these days with little regard to the consequences. Most of the turmoil in the US today can be traced this way:

1) reduced, paid for banking and stock/commodity purchases were a result of blind-eye regulations towards Wall Street2) the economy needed a boost, so we turned a hunt f

1 get rid of a lot the states powers,
2 the parties need to get party discipline and throw out the "nutters".
3 have strict uk style election campaign limits
4 replace the vast expenditure on tv campaigning with uk model of party political broadcasts.
5 have more equal constituency sizes (which will stop small agricultural states leaching of the bigger ones)
6 force all organizations (Unions and Company) to run a political fund for any lobbyin

Ok, I'm quoting the original points here for reference. By the way, I find it somewhat 'ironic' that the UK parliament is used as an example of a 'modern' democratic system when the US system was based upon the UK parliament.

1 get rid of a lot the states powers,
2 the parties need to get party discipline and throw out the "nutters".
3 have strict uk style election campaign limits
4 replace the vast expenditure on tv campaigning with uk model of party political broadcasts.
5 have more equal constituency sizes (which will stop small agricultural states leaching of the bigger ones)
6 force all organizations (Unions and Company) to run a political fund for any lobbying and have it confirmed by vote every 7 years with opt out allowed)

(1) would require an amendment to the US constitution. The powers of the Federal Government are spelled out and those not explicitly spelled out are supposed to be reserved to the states. A general way to think about the US is 50 different countries, each with their own president government and constitution, with a common limited government superior to them to make sure they get along. To take more power away from the states and give it to the Federal Government, you'd have to amend the constitution.

(2) Easily done, but seems to misinterpret US elections. The parties could get rid of the 'nutters' (although who are the nuts depends on who you are) but that doesn't prevent the nutters from getting elected. The US doesn't vote for parties, it explicitly votes for individuals. One party or another can back an individual, but it's not required and on election day you're voting for a person, not a party.

(3) Probably some issues with our 1st amendment and prevention of individuals from running campaign adds. The US has a very broad definition of Freedom of Speech that is basically unheard of anywhere else in the world.

(4) See (2), basically the same reason of voting for an individual instead of a party.

(5) We would have to change how elector's districts are divided up and this would require an amendment of Article 1 Section 2. The electors are apportioned among the states, but no state can receive less than one. In order to have 'more equal' distribution, you would have to have one person representing people in multiple states. Also, I'm not necessarily sure of the point behind it. The parent pokes at "small agricultural states" receiving a disproportionate share of Federal Dollars. Well, see here. [nationalpriorities.org] The agricultural states are (usually) the ones getting less back in dollars than they pay in taxes. The smallest one is Wyoming and it gets 84 cents back out of every dollar it pays in taxes. It looks like we do not have this as a problem.

(6) May actually be possible, but I'd like to know why "every 7 years" was chosen instead of something more often or less often.

I'm still genuinely curious. Is your constitution based on voting for individuals, not political principles? Don't regard this as an attack, but I'd appreciate a short explanation:)

I answered this above without realizing you had asked this at the end of your post. I don't take it as an attack. The answer is yes and I realize the US is very much in the minority when it comes to this. Although, I wonder if you mean "political parties" instead of "political principles". The only time I know of when we don't vote for an individual, we are voting for a pair of individuals (President and Vice President). The President and Vice President are elected as a pair, one running for President and the other for Vice President. On no ballot I know of will you find Party X or Party Y except as a subheading under an individual who we are voting for. We also vote for a lot of things all the way down to Dog Catcher in some areas (no joke).

I'm genuinely curious (I'm a foreigner), why would that be? I don't know enough about the US constitution to say anything about points 5-6, but 1-4 doesn't seem to be against it? Educate me:)

Sure.

On #1, the states, not the nation, are the basic political unit of the United States. The Federal Government's powers were all explicitly delegated to the Federal Government by the states; all powers not delegated to the Federal Government were retained by the states. And the list of powers given to the Federal Government were pretty few, even if over time they've been construed ever more broadly.

On #2, there are no parties able to exert discipline to throw out the "nutters". The Republican Party of Texas, the Republican National Committee, the Senate Republican Caucus, and the House Republican Caucus are all separate organizations in their legal existences and in their leadership. And it's the Republican Party of Texas that decides who is listed as a Republican on ballots in the state of Texas. If the Republicans in Texas decide they don't like the national Republican candidate for President, they can list someone else on the ballot. The national Republican candidate would then have to go through the usual procedure for independent candidates to get on the ballot in Texas, and would not be listed as a Republican on that ballot.

(By the way, calling back to #1, most election laws are written by the states, not the Federal Government.)

On #3, the Supreme Court has just thrown much milder restrictions out as unconstitutional. Imposing strict ones would require amending the Constitution. That, by the way, requires approval of a 2/3rds majority of each House of Congress and majority approval by both houses of the legislature in three quarters of the states, which is the same procedure you'd have to go through to accomplish #1. (There are some alternative procedures, but that's the basic one that's been used for 26 of the 27 amendments.)

On #4, well, see #2 and #3.

On #5, the Senate is strictly apportioned by the Constitution as 2 Senators per state (going back to the states as basic units, Senators were originally appointed by the states themselves, not elected). To make the Senate more equally apportioned by population, you'd have to convince 2/3rds the Senate and 3/4ths the states to approve amending the Constitution to do that. The House is first apportioned among states by population (minimum 1 per state), then divided into equal-population districts within each state.

This country was FOUNDED on the idea of state's rights, regardless of how far away we've gone from that.

The federal government was supposed to provide for a common defense and regulate interstate commerce (in a somewhat EU like manner, but there's too many differences). The states were supposed to be largely independent.

The constitution specified SPECIFIC duties of the federal government and left EVERYTHING ELSE to the states or individuals.

Oh, another bit about the US not having parties like Europe understands them, and thus not being able to throw out the nuts--the US has primaries. For example, in Texas, the Democratic and Republican nominees for the Governor of Texas, US House, US Senate, Texas House, Texas Senate, and may other positions are chosen in primary elections.

How this works is:

1) Anybody who can manage to gather enough petition signatures to appear on the ballot can run for the nomination of the party.2) Any voter in the state

2) Any voter in the state who wants to can vote in either party's primary (but not both at the same time).

Just to clarify, some of the rules surrounding voting in primaries varies by state. Here in California the Republican party did not allow "decline to state" (registered to vote but not registered as any specific party) to vote in their 2008 presidential primary. So only when the parties choose to allow it you can select which party's primary to vote in.

I'm still genuinely curious. Is your constitution based on voting for individuals, not political principles? Don't regard this as an attack, but I'd appreciate a short explanation:)

Pretty much. No-one is required to even have a political principle when running for office, much less state it out loud. No-one is required to have political principles that match up to their nominal Party if they do state them out loud. No-one is required to vote with the Party if in office.

Item 1 - get rid of states powers is severely at odds with the constitution. The constitution grants limited explicit powers to the federal government. Over the last 200 some years one item, the "commerce clause" that allows the regulation of interstate commerce has been made into a hole big enough to drive any big government program through. The states are supposed to have most of the power in the federal system, but their power has been continually eroded.

No.. never mind. Don't answer that. The people that I meet every day that are in their own little world is actually contradictory evidence. There are still plenty of people out there willing to argue that the corporations aren't in control. A lot of the facts are not apparent until you dig for them, and they're too busy picking up the kids from daycare and mowing their lawns to bother...

I don't know how many people know that most laws are written by lobbyists, but I wonder how many people know that the recently released Republican Pledge to America was written by a lobbyist for AIG, Pfizer, Comcast and others.

To quote "Pissed on Politics":

the Republican’s new “Pledge To America” was written by a heavy hitting lobbyist named Brian Wild. He’s lobbied on the behalf of major corporations like AIG, Comcast, Exxon Mobil, and Andarko Petroleum on top of working for Dick Cheney from 2004 to 2005 as a legislative affairs advisor. This guy Wild worked for the Nickels Group, a lobby firm set up by Oklahoma’s former Republican Senator Don Nickles.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Bad-assed blogger Sam Stein expands:

Until early this year, Wild was a fairly active lobbyist on behalf of the firm the Nickles Group, the lobbying shop set up by the former Republican Senator from Oklahoma, Don Nickles. During his five years at the firm, Wild, among others, was paid $740,000 in lobbying contracts from AIG, the former insurance company at the heart of the financial collapse; $800,000 from energy giant Andarko Petroleum; more than $1.1 million from Comcast, more than $1.3 million from Exxon Mobil; and $625,000 from the pharmaceutical company Pfizer Inc.

Let me impart a little lesson on reading between the lines. You read that sentence and see "family values." Why shouldn't taking care of your home and raising your children be more important than taking an interest and participating in your government?

I read that sentence and I see the destruction of the nuclear family. Why is the parent picking up a child from daycare rather than caring for it at home? The reason, of course, is that most families are now dual income, with both parents working, which me

We live much, much better. In fact, if you want to live with all the gadgets from the 60s, you don't need double income. You probably only need part of the first income. data [gapminder.org]

Do we live better? well, living better depends not only on income, but also health and education. And there was significant progress. more data [gapminder.org] -- but only since the 80s, although I will submit to you this interesting graph of child mortality: graph [gapminder.org].

Perhaps it's a little stubborn on both sides, no? If you know that your attitude towards them triggers the response of them digging their heals in (which you blatently do know, because it's a bit hard to miss that there are people like this!) and you do not adapt your interactions with them to try to avoid this from happening, then you're being just as stubborn as they are with the same results (their and your stubbornness results in them digging their heals in).

Maybe the 50 Member States should call a constitutional convention before that happens, and add a few amendments such as "Corporations do not have the same rights as the People." ALSO: "When one-half of the Legislatures of the Member States declare a Law unconstitutional, it shall be null and void from the moment of its enactment."

AND: "The task of examining Laws and determining constitutionality shall reside in a Constitutional Court, independent of the United States, whose 7 justices shall serve for 20 years, and be chusen by the Governors of the States by simple majority ballot. They shall have power to overturn or affirm cases previously examined by the Supreme Court." AND: "Strike the clause 'and general Welfare'."

**The typical SCOTUS judge serves 29 years. I consider that too long, so I made it two-thirds that length.

Real news would be if somebody actually found a way to counteract their deeds.

No, the solution is well-known, just unpalatable to many people: stop having the government attempting to micromanage the economy. Every time Congress decides to treat one segment of the economy differently than another, through special taxes, regulations, subsidies, privileges, etc., the lobbyists will appear. Note that I am not arguing against all taxes and such, just pointing out that all such interference produces lobbyists.

Besides, if you want Congress to (e.g.) redesign the health care system, do you think they would actually do a better job if doctors, hospitals, and drug companies weren't consulted at all? I don't. I think they'd end up with legislation that was even more clueless. Just because lobbyists are arguing for a particular group doesn't mean they're always wrong.

If you want to minimize lobbyists, advocate against all special tax breaks and subsidies and for making taxes and regulation as uniform, sensible, and simple as possible.

Well, true, but I see this as no different than lawmakers making laws that benefit their favored interest groups, for ideology or money or votes or all of the above. At least lobbyists have to convince lawmakers of their case, while lawmakers can just collude among themselves.

Real news would be if somebody actually found a way to counteract their deeds.

No, the solution is well-known, just unpalatable to many people: stop having the government attempting to micromanage the economy. Every time Congress decides to treat one segment of the economy differently than another, through special taxes, regulations, subsidies, privileges, etc., the lobbyists will appear. Note that I am not arguing against all taxes and such, just pointing out that all such interference produces lobbyists.

Epic fail. Your words utterly fail to match reality. First off, even if there were no regulations, they would still be lobbying as much (more, actually, since 'regulation' also covers lobbying) to get favorable treatment, government contracts, etc. etc. Secondly, during our best and strongest years(post-WW2), the top tax rate was in the 90's, the banks were heavily regulated, and the government was distributing a large percentage of the GDP for the general welfare of people including helping retired and poor people with their bills and medical expenses, many grants for health and other technologies, and infrastructure (such as highways, power, water, and communications) without which both the commercial and private sectors (of the whole world, and especially the US) would have stagnated and possibly had another dark age!

Both the commercial sector AND government can be great positive OR negative forces. Crippling EITHER is sheer idiocy! We merely need to curtail the TRUE threats without succumbing to slippery slope rhetoric by the radicals.

Just because lobbyists are arguing for a particular group doesn't mean they're always wrong.

Growing up with my Mom and Dad thousands of miles apart I flew a lot. Once when I flew into BWI I sat next to a lobbyist. I was around 7. He taught me how to play Blackjack. He took four dollars from me.

Corporations are too powerful and our government gets controlled by them. To counteract this we should allow companies to become more powerful, less restricted and take powers away from the government, reel it in.

Almost as good as the teapartiers. "Can you believe the government is in so much debt??? Obama needs to cut taxes across the board NOW!"

Corporations are too powerful and our government gets controlled by them. To counteract this we should allow companies to become more powerful, less restricted and take powers away from the government, reel it in.

The corporations aren't "too powerful" in their own right; they simply have too much influence over the government, given the amount of power the government has over everyone else (which is another problem quite apart from corporate influence). There are two aspects to solving this issue. One is to reduce the power of governments, which simultaneously limits the power available for corporations to influence. The other is to reduce the influence corporations have over the government. Both are worthwhile goals.

Almost as good as the teapartiers. "Can you believe the government is in so much debt??? Obama needs to cut taxes across the board NOW!"

You missed an "..." in your "quote". Public debt and high taxes are both very real problems, a fact acknowledged (to varying degrees) by both major political parties. Obviously the only way to solve either problem without making the other worse is to spend less, which is also a goal of the "Tea Party".

Basic financial management for governments is no different from financial management for individuals: first, earn a productive income (i.e. not stolen from others); second, maintain your capital investments (needs); third, plan for the future (pay down debts, save & invest); fourth, consume (satisfy wants). Taxes are a symptom of failing the first step. Debt and degrading infrastructure are symptoms of erroneously prioritizing consumption.

Libertarianism (classical liberalism) does not trust ANY government because it recognizes that the tendency of humans to control and dominate one another. All human society will consolidate over time, the U.S. was designed originally (Constitution) to set competing groups against one another (3 branches checking each other, States against each other, States against Federal Authority).

Anybody who hasn't been asleep the past 20 or more years already knows that organizations have stolen the government.

I've got news for you: it's always been this way.

This is not some new phenomenon in the last 20 years, the industry has always written its own laws. Most recently, the financial industry wrote the Financial Reform Act. 200 years ago, guess who wrote the copyright laws? If you said the book industry, you win a gold star! Today it's the music and movie industry writing the copyright laws - welcome the new boss, same as the old boss. Guess who is going to be writing the offshore drilling laws that will be

You have decided to use violent revolution to overthrow the government. Now you have two problems.

Exactly. Violent revolutions are a triumph of mob aggression over organized aggression. Assuming the revolution is successful, you're still left with aggression, which will become more organized over time until you're back where you started.

To defeat organized aggression you have to start from the other end. The first step is to ignore the aggressor: reject its claims of legitimacy and stop responding reflectively to its power. When the aggressor responds according to its nature, as it must inevitably do, o

I think you've got it. Passive resistance only
works if the enemy identifies itself as civilized in
some manner, or has a sense of shame. Thus, India could use it to prevail against
the British, who regarded themselves as civilized, Christian,
moral, whatever you want to call it.

On the other end of the spectrum, simple reactions of
violence just bring about the replacement effect you describe.

Somewhere in the middle, you have scenarios where you're
dealing with an enemy that can't be shamed into stopping.

I thought it was the Illuminati. I mean serious, if the legislators can't be arsed to even read legislation at all prior to voting on it, I think it stands to reason that they weren't the ones writing it. Wouldn't surprise me that it's not just the Patriot act that was done in that fashion.

Oh, I WTFV, but still, like there have been other oracles before him, it matters not. Technology has change government, it has given it more methods to keep people in line, to feed them what they want, to play one class off another, to better mince boundary lines to keep officials in power, to better redistribute wealth to do what boundaries cannot, and a host of other abuses. We have all the fun of McCain/Feingold followed by an Administration that seems to have free speech if it is of a differing opinion. One that takes the worst of the previous abuser and exaggerates them.

China operates like the Orwellian nightmare of a business, uprooting people and destroying history and nature in its relentless march forward, hoping to get where its going before something irrevocably breaks. China has to look over its shoulder as well, up and coming countries arise all the time, each more hungry than the last. Let alone their real problem, how to keep North Korea from causing an all out war next door.

China operates like the Orwellian nightmare of a business, uprooting people and destroying history and nature in its relentless march forward, hoping to get where its going before something irrevocably breaks.

If you're referring to China relocating entire villages for the 3 Gorges Dam project, I admire them for that decision. They had the balls to make a decision, that relocating 0.3% of their population was a good trade off for the major improvement in their ability to generate clean energy and not rely on foreign imported oil.

I wish our country had those balls again, instead being slave to a few twats who insist that a few species of fish _might_ be helped by tearing down existing hydro dams. Being on the f

Wow, either trolling or you're a complete moron. It's pretty well established that the dams are harming the salmon and preventing them from going back to the way they used to be.

Neither a troll nor moron am I.

I agree that the dams impact the Salmon. It has also been shown that removing existing dams has negligible benefit to populations that have adapted to the restrict spawning area caused by those dams. Watch closely while I cite a source - http://www.nwcouncil.org/history/DamsImpacts.asp [nwcouncil.org]. You can also search and find many references that bypass systems such as fish ladders to allow upstream migration and return paths have been show to be fairly effective.

To be fair, the US seems to be having a hard time with passing bills that have long or short term effects! Every time I look at what Congress seems to be doing I end up wondering how there's even a country left! How it needs that many people to make doing nothing as slow as they've made it is beyond me!

Am completely with you on the China front. Human rights abuses aside (which our countries have more than our fair shares of - just that ours are primarily in countr

That's actually a misconception. Oil from "Persian Gulf" countries only accounts for 17% [doe.gov] of foreign oil consumption, which is a mere 51% (same link) of our total oil usage, which is only 59% [doe.gov] (Liquids + Natural Gas) of our total energy consumption. That makes Persian Gulf oil a mere 5% of our total energy usage. Our Nuclear usage is more than that (8%, second link), and everyone knows we hate Nuclear in the US.

The connection between our interests in the middle east and our oil needs is tenuous at best. What we really need the balls to do is build more Nuclear plants. Here China is again a great example, with 23 [world-nuclear.org] new reactors presently under construction.

I find two faults with your observations. The first (isn't really yours as it's so common) is equating the 5% of energy use as foreign oil with "only". Seems to me that combining the energy used to generate electricity and that used to transportation (and industrial/other "energy uses") is flawed in that it's too general of a statement. Pulling that 17% of our fuel out of our transportation infrastructure would be a plenty big problem without stockpiles/rapidly increased production.

Do you.. do you really think that the reason why we're not building more hydroelectric dams is because of the Greens?

You realize that they have almost exactly zero political power, right? The reason why we're not spending money on infrastructure like green energy (or even just fixing up the energy sources we currently have) is pretty clearly explained here [wordpress.com]. And if you don't believe me, just look at our budget - actions (or in this case, budget allocations) speak louder than words.

Do you.. do you really think that the reason why we're not building more hydroelectric dams is because of the Greens?

They have some political power, certainly at the local levels. The oil companies have immense political influence and they stand to lose revenues if alternative energy sources are exploited. If you look up the history of the Grand Coulee dam for example, you'll see that oil and traditional power generation companies almost sank the project.

Actually environmental protection, primarily in relation to salmon, has been a big issue in relation to dams. It doesn't take enormous political clout, just a few favorable regulations and court rulings. The hydroelectric companies like Idaho Power aren't tremendously strong politically either. I agree with your general pro-environmentalist sentiment though.

I completely agree that our foreign entanglements budget and general military budget are wildly out of control, and should be vastly curtailed.

Another two to look at are Social Security and health care.

Social Security will eat the entire GDP in the not too distant future if the age threshold is not raised. Check out the numbers, they are as bad as the military (and rising significantly faster).

Health care is becoming too expensive; lots of reasons for this, including a ton of protectionism, lawyerism, and corruption, but the one that cannot be fixed is this: Our technological ability to keep people alive is advancing faster than the GDP growth rate can keep up with. At some point, we will have to stop paying for everyone's maximum possible life extension (either by choice or by collapse).

Not trying to piss in your cheerios -- you're right about the military -- just pointing out two other oncoming trains that are bigger and faster. Check the numbers for yourself -- they're scary.

Social Security will eat the entire GDP in the not too distant future if the age threshold is not raised. Check out the numbers, they are as bad as the military (and rising significantly faster).

Bull. Shit. You seem to have fallen for the pro-corporate propaganda.
There are many other ways to "fix" Social Security. For example, if people making over $100,000 per year contributed at the same rate as poorer people then the problems would be solved for the foreseeable future. In fact, this is what Obama promised to do before he got elected.

Health care is becoming too expensive; lots of reasons for this, including a ton of protectionism, lawyerism, and corruption, but the one that cannot be fixed is this: Our technological ability to keep people alive is advancing faster than the GDP growth rate can keep up with. At some point, we will have to stop paying for everyone's maximum possible life extension (either by choice or by collapse).

More of the same. The problem with our health care system is simple. We can basically do three things with our health care system:

Provide affordable health care

Provide effective health care

Fund obscene corporate profits

Pick any two. Unfortunately, both the Dems and the Repubs keep picking option (3) making it impossible for us to have the first two options together.
If insurance companies are trying to maximize shareholder value then their job is to minimize the health care that is provided while maximizing the cost of that care. They are very good at their job.

The idea of fixing the economy by increasing the income gap between the rich and the poor makes about as much sense as dousing a fire with gasoline.

Do you.. do you really think that the reason why we're not building more hydroelectric dams is because of the Greens?

You realize that they have almost exactly zero political power, right?

Nonsense. They have enough power to throw sand into the process to sink about any large project. Even if they don't get a court to shut down the project, they manage to get delay after delay after delay, adding so much risk and cost that the investors back out.

You're forgetting that the major reason for building some of these dams such as the Grand Coulee dam, was to control flooding. The cheap power generation and source of controlled irrigation waters were secondary benefits.

Of course none of this has much impact on our growing energy demands. The cost of energy doesn't seem to have much effect on that. As an example the tripling of gas prices in recent years had a very minor effect on miles driven.

Which would probably work, except for one thing standing in the way: people with attitudes just like yours.

Instead of saying "yes we already know this", we should be saying "yes this is true, and we should be talking about it every day." Because it isn't going to be fixed unless people talk about it, and care about it....rather than just saying that we are effectively helpless to do anything about it.

Despite what some whiners online may say, America really is a free country both in that you can say what you want, and that the people have the power to change the government. What that means is that if you want to organize around candidates to change the current system, the government can't stop you, and that if you vote those candidates in to power, that is that.

The only obstacle is people who are whiny and say nothing can be changed. Bullshit, it can so. Doesn't mean it is easy, doesn't mean it won't take time and effort, but it can be done. One of the first steps is just getting the message out. Let people know what is going on, and so on.

This is precisely the same as the "third party" bullshit. "Oh voting for a third party candidate is throwing your vote away." No, that is only the case if idiots continue to believe that and not vote third party. If you look around, you find that at a state level third party candidates have won and held office. There is no evil force that keeps them out, only the force of apathy/whinyness from people who say "It can't be done."

Americans DO have the power to change their government, however to do so they have to understand this fact, and exercise it. Bitching does no good.

That is right, in America, I am free to live in debt slavery until I die from a simple medical condition I can't pay for. That is pretty much how it goes unless you are born into money, or happen to be in the 99.99th percentile of people in your city, the 1 or 2 people that actually get out and do something with their lives. You try accomplishing something when you can barely pay your bills working your ass off every single fucking night.

When 1% of the country owns 95% of its assets, they can easily out-finance political campaigns and win any election. Just look at Fox news, successfully spouting total lies (don't believe me, just watch 10 minutes, write everything down, and painstakingly fact check it. I have spent more than 8 hours doing this, and have not found a single truth on that channel), and yet, despite the lies, a large number of people believe everything they say totally without question. You try fixing a system that fucked up, I have been trying my whole life.

You're a retard, you know that? He just said he barely makes enough to support himself despite working hard every day. The top 20% of the country owns 87% of the wealth. The bottom 60% owns less than 1% of the wealth. What the heck is anyone supposed to do when half of those paupers vote for politicians who want to give MORE money to the rich?

Income mobility is remarkably low in the US. There was an economist article on that a while back.

Also, about the government being inefficient: this is a huge strawman: the government is meant to fill those niches which cannot be filled by the market, because the externalities are hugely positives but there is no profit (roads for example). Also those niches which are natural monopolies: in this case profit can be extracted, but this profit is pure loss for the society, utilities tend to be like that, telcos

See, you not only don't know how to read, but jump up on all the typical bullshit. For starters, I am trying. I have been trying, I go to college all day, work in my spare time, and I have been working on several inventions, and trying to sell them in what time I have left. I work my ass off every day of my life, and yet have no choice but to live in debt slavery, no matter how hard I try to fix shit. And I do all of that with Cluster Headaches, the most painful medical condition known to medicine. Most of the time I am working to improve my situation, but I wasn't born into money, so I will still be living in debt slavery working at some corporate giant giving away my expertise for a tiny ass paycheck watching my ideas and ingenuity going to make the world worse instead of better.

Also, I like what Fox says, I WISH it were true. But it is a load of bullshit that keeps hard working people like me inpoverished and overworked while getting nothing back. I am also an eagle scout and spead a good deal of time doing voluntary community service.

At least those people can Afford to go to a 3rd world country to fix it. I could live for a month of the cost of a plane ticket, and I frequently have to. Now is it ok to whine while at the same time doing everything to get into a better situation? Yes it is you ignorant jack ass. go back to living the easy life getting mad that the poor people who work 20 hours a day are so lazy. Fuck you.

Point 4 is exactly where Lawrence Lessig started 'Change Congress' to try to fix the underlying root of our corrupt congress. Lessig says you can't fix anything else until you fix this first. Anything else, like for example fixing the problems in our Healthcare, will be subverted by corporate lobbyists to just make more profit for the incumbent corporations.

Lawrence Lessig:"Whatever else one believes about the Supreme Court's decision striking down limits on corporate speech in the context of political campaigns, there's one thing no credible commentator could assert: That money bought this result. We can disagree with the Court's view of the Framers (and I do); we can criticize its application of stare decisis (as any honest lawyer should); and we can stand dumbfounded by its tone-deaf understanding of the nature of corruption (as anyone living in the real wo

I disagree on point 1. First, I think it is a separate problem. I also think it is stupid to do so. Nader voters doing just that in 2000 gave the election to GWB.

That problem is solvable by having a ranked voting system (as we have here in San Francisco), and using a Condorcet method [wikipedia.org] for tabulating the ballots (unfortunatly SF's system is not condorcet but "instant runoff"....still its better than plurality)

Still....different issue. Important issue, yes, but not the same issue.

Despite comments to the effect that this is not news, these comments are quite interesting. Google has a capitalization comparable to the lobbyists of the kind of ATT and others, but here as well, they play differently, and more transparently. Mr. Schmidt's comments here reflect this difference.

This is why this company still has the sympathy of slashdotters. Google's effort to advance Net neutrality and other issues pertaining to civil liberties and the Internet are to be appreciated, not derided cynically like I am reading here.

Google's business model over the years has been focused on things which are quite disruptive to the way things have been done, and so it's not surprising that at times they'd be doing something like this.

However, Google has made use of the same corruption as everybody else. There's no way that they could've bought doubclick had the DoJ under Bush been enforcing antitrust regulations, it's just not something that would've been allowable.

And this ("laws written by lobbyists") is why I don't think corporations should have free speech rights. They can have revocable *privileges* to run ads but should never have the right to hire, for example, a Microsoft lobbyists or RIAA lobbyists to block-out the voice of the people in the halls of Congress. Or to run ads to support their favorite puppet for Congress. The corporations have no more rights than a building.

If Bill Gates or the RIAA CEO wants to lobby, let them hire the lobbyist from his personal salary, rather than using the corporation's billon-dollar treasury.

If Gates had been lobbying before the IE lawsuits the way he is now, he wouldn't have had the problems he had. If he had been buying off congress like a good corporation does, he would have been just fine. They lobby because it is protection.

In the U.S. Constitution there is no 'right' to free speech, only a limitation on who may create laws on speech.

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

If you would like to see corporations have their 'speech' limited, then support the Constitution.

I suspect it's simply impossible to create a non-corrupt government that manages a country that big and is so far removed from its citizens. Going back to the roots and organizing ourselves into something akin to city-states might allow us to keep closer control over the people we designate.Diversity of laws can be a problem, but at least nowadays with online communications it'd be easier for such city-states to cooperate on treaties.A question that arises is whether it wouldn't actually empower corporations more, with smaller states having smaller budgets than industry leaders.

The system is just clearly broken, thanks to both parties (Which in reality is just one big party). But this is nothing new, this is as old as our country. Hell, anti-monopoly laws, were written and designed by the largest businesses in the country themselves. It is buying protection, that is it. "Hey, here is some money to run again for congress, lets work on this law together. On yeah, it just may benefit me and block my competition"

Who do you want writing laws that govern complicated industries (high-tech, medical, etc.): a bunch of politicians, or people who actually work in those respective industries? Does the average congressman with a law degree understand the nuances of intertube technology (too soon? nah.), for example? I have no problem with industries proposing or even drafting legislation, provided that our elected representatives and their staffs actually read and digest the bills to ensure that the law is fair, enforceable, and beneficial.

I personally do believe in a Technocratic system of government - but that's beside the point.

The problem is this:

People start companies to earn money. They take care of their clients because it earns them more money, and they provide a quality service for the same reason.

Now if a company decides to write the rules - without having to stick its head out - and when it already dominates the market - what do you think its going to be in aid of? Are the movie companies going to draft a law which reduces their profits?

No way.

Everyone pulls towards their interests. Now capitalism has the happy effect of "The needs of the rich outweigh the needs of the many", and when you give power to people who want money - they will/NOT/ produce any bills which do not suit them.

I want the bills drafted by people who actually represent the PEOPLE as a whole. To do so, they may find that they need to consult hired independent experts in those industries. Otherwise we get a bunch of know-nothings taking the word of "industry experts" with a lot of vested interest rubber stamping whatever they want.

To do so, they will be called upon to tirelessly educate themselves in a variety of disciplines. That's the job (for which they are well compensated both tangibly and intangibly) and if the

The founders in an incredible amount of foresight and wisdom knew that an "efficient" goverment is a dictatorship - one man making decisions and implementing them immediately. This is the best it could get to be as there would be no need for endless debating, no filibusters, no gridlock.

The only problem is, how well can you choose your dictator? Experience and history shows that a really good choice of dictator is rare and doesn't last very long even if you get a good one. So this idea of an efficient government was discarded.

There is another problem with an efficient government. We have somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 million laws - probably not an exaggeration. A new law takes days at a minimum regardless of it being a municipal, state or federal law. Some take months or even years to enact. Can you imagine a process that made passing laws "efficient" so it only took minutes? What would we be saddled with?

Sure, the US government has grown to the point where the Congresscritters are unable to keep up and are relying on external help. Can you just imagine what it would be like if there was no gridlock, no filibustering and things got done in an efficient manner? We might have to double the size of Congress just to be able to process stuff and keep things flowing. That would be the goal, right? To keep things flowing and passing more and more bills, laws, regulations and requirements.

The US government was designed to be horribly inefficient and to have so much momentum that it was virtually impossible to pass anything unless a lot of people really, really believed it was necessary to do so. And still we have millions of laws and more all the time. I'd say it is working as designed.

Companies depend on selling their products to the masses. Therefore, you may not realise it, but we actually hold the key to destroying them if we wanted to. The problem is that people are undirected, they do not wish to take a stand. It is only the chosen few who actually become 'leaders' , and usually they start doing what suits THEM instead of what suits the masses.

When the masses stop being controlled by the media, and are able to THINK - and decide that they do want change, and realise that THEY hold the power - then the world will change dramatically.

But that's never going to happen, so I guess we're stuck in this hellhole.

It's incomplete. The victors - both military AND economic - also draft the laws.

Most of our legislative burden, that portion not derived directly from common law, is all about serving primarily the interests of our "captains of industry" and "pillars of society", preserving and increasing the control and material resources acquired at the expense of everyone else. Any beneficial fallout for the rest of We The People is purely accidental and not really intended.

There's lots of talk and theorizing, but little research on the effect and influence of lobbyists. Thankfully, there is a large ten year study of lobbying, Lobbying and Policy Change: Who Wins, Who Loses, and Why [uchicago.edu] (available at your favorite bookstore). There's a pretty good review of it at Miller-McCune [miller-mccune.com]. An excerpt:

The real outcome of most lobbying -- in fact, its greatest success -- is the achievement of nothing, the maintenance of the status quo. "Sixty percent of the time, nothing happens," says Frank Baumgartner, one author of the book and a political science professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "What we see is gridlock and successful stalemating of proposals, with occasional breakthroughs. We see a pattern of no change, no change and no change -- and then some huge reform."

But those large reforms -- such as health care for 32 million uninsured Americans under President Barack Obama, the scheduled phase-out of the estate tax under President George W. Bush, and the normalization of trade relations with China under President Bill Clinton -- are far more often linked to a change in who inhabits the White House than to campaign contributions or K Street hires.

The weak link between money and policy change is counterintuitive but understandable, the authors say. The balance of power in Washington already hugely favors the rich. The status quo reflects the considerable advantages the wealthy have managed to secure in the law, down through the generations.

I would put it to the readers that overall "the great experiment" has turned out better than one could have hoped.

Depends on whose perspective you are taking. If the goal of the experiment was to achieve domination of the public mind and the turning of everybody into an acting sociopath, then it's been very successful I would say.

Secret wars, deals and shenanigans are generally less prevalent as the decades roll on (granted this is also evident world-wide).

What are you basing that on? I think people are, if anything, MORE easily trained into going along with lies and manipulations than ever before. Who needs a secret war when people will go along with a public one? Who needs shenanigans when people are willing to put up with corruption happe